Religion:Haran Gawaita

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Short description: Mandaean text


Haran Gawaita
Information
ReligionMandaeism
LanguageMandaic language

The Haran Gawaita (Mandaic ࡄࡀࡓࡀࡍ ࡂࡀࡅࡀࡉࡕࡀ "Inner Harran" or "Inner Hauran") also known as the Scroll of Great Revelation, is a Mandaean text which recounts the history of the Mandaeans and their arrival in Media as Nasoraeans from Jerusalem.[1][2]

Text, dating and authorship

The text is in the Mandaic language and script, and is dated to around the 4th–6th centuries. It is of unknown authorship.

Content

According to the Haran Gawaita, John the Baptist was baptized, initiated, and educated by the patron of the Nasirutha (secret knowledge), Enosh (Anush or Anush-ʼuthra), the hierophant of the sect.[3]:6–7 This research was conducted by the Oxford scholar and specialist on the Nasoraeans, Lady Ethel S. Drower. According to Jorunn J. Buckley, the Mandaeans see themselves to be former Judeans based in Jerusalem that loved Adonai until the birth of Jesus.[4]:49[2]:96 These Nasoraean disciples of John the Baptist[3]:IX are aware of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE, but they did not leave because of this. They fled before 70 CE due to persecution by a faction of more normative or Orthodox Jews. With the help of the Parthian king Artabanus II (Ardban II; previously known as Ardban III), who ruled from 11-38 CE, the Mandaeans settled in the Median Hills (Mandaic: Ṭura ḏ-Madai[5]:xiii), and later moved to southern Babylonia.[4]:4[2][6]

Manuscripts and translations

An English translation of the Haran Gawaita and the Diwan Masbuta d Hibil Ziwa was published in 1953 by Lady E. S. Drower, which was based on manuscripts 9 and 36 of the Drower Collection (abbreviated DC 9 and DC 36, respectively).[7]

A typesetted Mandaic version of DC 9 was published by Majid Fandi Al-Mubaraki in 2002.[8]

A German translation, which makes use of Drower's manuscripts as well as two additional privately held manuscripts, was published in 2020 by Bogdan Burtea.[9]

Buckley has also located a privately held copy of the Haran Gawaita dating from 1930 in Flushing, New York.[10]

See also

  • Essenes
  • Timeline of Jerusalem
  • Second Temple Judaism
  • Harran

References

  1. "And sixty thousand Nasoraeans abandoned the Sign of the Seven and entered the Median Hills, a place where we were free from domination by all other races." Karen L. King, What is Gnosticism?, 2005, Page 140
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2010). Turning the Tables on Jesus: The Mandaean View. In Horsley, Richard (March 2010). Christian Origins. ISBN 9781451416640. https://books.google.com/books?id=ncuQxl5Ate0C&dq=buckley+mandaean+turning+the+table+on+jesus&pg=PA109. (pp94-111). Minneapolis: Fortress Press
  3. 3.0 3.1 Drower, Ethel Stefana. The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa. Biblioteca Apostolica Vatican, 1953
  4. 4.0 4.1 Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2002). The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515385-5. OCLC 65198443. 
  5. Drower, E. S. (1960). The secret Adam: a study of Nasoraean gnosis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
  6. Gündüz, Şinasi (1994). "The Knowledge of Life: The Origins and Early History of the Mandaeans and Their Relation to the Sabians of the Qur'ān and to the Harranians". Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement (Oxford University Press) 3. ISBN 0-19-922193-6. ISSN 0022-4480. 
  7. Les textes de Nag Hammadi: - Page 111 Jacques E. Ménard, Université des sciences humaines de Strasbourg. Centre de recherches d'histoire des religions - 1975 "This part of the theory is based on a sort of « History of the Mandaean Movement », called Diwan of the Great Revelation, called Harran Gawaita (the Inner Harran) published in 1953 by Lady ES Drower s». It begins, after a preamble and a .."
  8. Al-Mubaraki, Majid Fandi (2002). Haran gawaitha (D.C. 9). Mandaean Diwan. 5. Sydney. ISBN 1-876888-02-4. 
  9. Burtea, Bogdan (2020) (in de). Haran Gauaita, ein Text zur Geschichte der Mandäer: Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-11362-5. OCLC 1138882232. https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/titel_6488.ahtml. 
  10. Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2010). The great stem of souls: reconstructing Mandaean history. Piscataway, N.J: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-621-9. 

Further reading

External links